


Once Bitten

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Love Bites, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On February 15, Sherlock Holmes sets out to solve the case of a dead woman and a missing blue gem. At the same time, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, and John Watson have a mystery of their own to investigate...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Bitten

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [caged-nightingale](http://caged-nightingale.tumblr.com/) over at Tumblr for the Adlock Valentine's Day exchange, who asked for a story in which "Sherlock has been walking around London, solving a crime, with a bite/kiss mark on his neck without him noticing."
> 
> I hope you enjoy this!

Lestrade notices first.

The case had been a death and a theft. Lestrade thought it was obvious, that the victim had returned home to find her prized jewelry (a blue gem valued at a price with so many zeroes behind it that Lestrade had trouble conceiving of the idea) stolen, and committed suicide in despair. Sherlock, on the other hand, had taken one look at the crime scene and declared it a murder and a theft, and begun sweeping through the room finding cues only he could see.

Is it during one of these sweeps, as Sherlock Holmes backs his way out from under the bed where he's discovered some unique plant fiber or some pattern in the grain of the carpet or somesuch, that his coat collar is pushed away by the bedframe, and a vivid red mark is visible against his neck, just below his ear. For a moment, Lestrade thinks it's a trick of the light, as if anything in the room could cast such a red glow, and in such a precise location.

But, despite Sherlock Holmes' repeated claims to the contrary, Greg Lestrade is in fact a competent detective inspector, and is more than capable of investigating a subject. Especially when said subject is more thoroughly focused on the way the carpet piles than on his companions. Lestrade edges towards Sherlock to be certain, asks some question is so inane in its blandness that Sherlock pauses in his deductions to look up and turn around in disbelief to scoff. That is when Lestrade becomes certain that what he had seen is not a trick of the light, that there is, in fact a vivid red mark against Sherlock Holmes' pale skin, the sort of mark that can only be made by a pair of lips, and not (to the disappointment of secondary school boys everywhere) the sort to be faked by the judicious use of a hoover.

The mystery, of course, was _who_ could leave such a mark on _Sherlock Holmes_ of all people.

 

***

 

Molly is the second to notice.

The body makes it to the morgue well ahead of the Scotland Yard and their consulting detective, which means the pathologist is waiting for them with the preliminary external examination already complete when they arrive. Sherlock is predictably focused on the body, on the case and the minutiae he's gleaned from the crime scene, interested only in whether new data will solidify the obvious.

Lestrade, on the other hand, follows Sherlock in with a look of intense curiosity. Molly notices when she is reciting the obvious details while Sherlock ignores her, and Lestrade attempts to catch her eye, jerking is head towards Sherlock, mouthing something she could not understand. She frowns, and it takes another five minutes, when Sherlock is thoroughly ensconced in examining the callouses on the deceased's left hand, for Lestrade to be able to gesture to his neck, to a spot just below his ear, and then to Sherlock.

Molly leans over to look, somewhere between curious and concerned, and nearly drops her clipboard when she sees the bright red mark. Her eyes are more practiced to the nuances of bruises on human skin, and she notices what Lestrade doesn't, the slight discolouration in the bruise, the faint indentation.

Teeth marks.

She _does_ drop the clipboard then, as her mind conjures, unbidden, a mental image of how such a bruise would be caused, of it being caused by some _one_ on _Sherlock Holmes_. Had he still been wearing the coat when whoever had left their mark on him did that? Had they been standing in 221B Baker Street? Lying tangled in expensive sheets in some posh hotel in London? The mark was fresh, hours, less than a day old... She flushes, her face suddenly hot and Molly makes some comment, she does not know exactly what she says, some excuse to explain herself. But that is hardly necessary, as Sherlock's attention is still riveted to the body.

He sees something in the fingernails, and suddenly straightens, declaring the case solved, so obvious even Anderson could do it, and rushes off, leaving Molly and Lestrade standing across the slab from each other, staring.

“You saw that, yeah?” Lestrade asks, gesturing to his own neck, then to the doors and the consulting detective's passage. “Don't suppose he cut himself shaving.”

Molly bends to pick up her clipboard, stack her notes back together. “No, no,that was definitely a bite mark,” she stammered back, willing herself to stop blushing (and failing). She gives Lestrade a sidelong look, and is gratified that the detective inspector does not seem to notice her blush. A deep breath, and she asks the question they are both wondering. “But who would--” She stops, not certain whether she wants to continue. Not sure _how_ she should continue. 'Who would he allow that close?' 'Who would want to be that close to Sherlock?' 'Did they know his personality?' She changes tracks. “Would John know who gave him that?”

Lestrade frowns, considers the question. “Probably not. Mary might. She notices these things.”

 

***

 

John is the only one who asks.

As is his habit these days, on his way home to Mary from St. Bart's, John stops by 221B Baker Street. Whether it is a compromise between husband and wife or one of Mary Watson's machinations to ensure the mental health and keeping of both one John Watson and one Sherlock Holmes, John is not certain he wants to know. He contents himself with these visits, and the occasional cases that he is dragged into through these visits, but stays home with his family for the most part. And, really, John has to admit, it is nice to live in a home where one didn't regularly encounter half-pickled eyeballs in the refrigerator.

He arrives at 221B about three steps behind Sherlock, back from a case, judging by the euphoria in his friend's step, and follows him up the familiar stairs into the flat. “A suicide,” Sherlock sneers as he climbs the steps, hopping over the third step from the top (it squeaks when John does not avoid it). He is jubilant despite his dismissive tone, now in his element of preening for an appreciative audience. “A _suicide_ ,” he reiterates as he opens the door to the flat and begins shedding his scarf and coat. “Lestrade thought it was a suicide, as if a woman who'd spent that much of her life taking revenge on an abusive husband would choose _that_ over a piece of stolen jewelry.”

“So if it wasn't suicide, then what was--” John begins, then stops when he notices the discolouration at his friend's neck, the vivid red mark just above his collar, clearly visible. He blinks, could he have imagined it, and gestures to Sherlock. “You... get into a fight while you were out with Lestrade?” he asks, gesturing vaguely towards Sherlock.

The sudden switch from their usual pattern of Sherlock holding forth at length on the incompetence of Scotland Yard while John asks prompting question catches Sherlock by surprise, and he stops, blinks, and gives his friend a look of mixed exasperation and disbelief. “What?”

John nods towards Sherlock, gesturing again, this time with slightly greater proximity towards his collar, and repeats himself, growing more uncomfortable, as he realizes what the mark actually _is_. “You've got a thing. There on your neck. Go look in the mirror, if you don't believe me.”

Sherlock reaches up to his collar, then heads to the mirror, and his expression freezes to a careful blankness when he sees what John has noticed, one that John knows very well and which makes him suspicious. “It's nothing,” Sherlock declares, waving at John, gesturing him towards the door. “Aren't you taking Mary out for dinner tonight?”

John gives his former flatmate a flat look, and even as he is chivvyed towards the door, he continues his line of questioning. “I took Mary out for dinner last night, what were you _doing_ that got you--” A pause, as he realizes that in fact, the reason he'd taken Mary out the previous night had been because it had been Valentine's Day, and John looks aghast, stopping at the threshold to the flat, and turning back to Sherlock. “You didn't go get engaged to some other strange woman for a _case_ did you? Sherlock you can't just go around--”

Sherlock sighed, exasperated, and began to swing the door close. “No John, good night, have a nice evening, say hello to Mary for me,” he says without a pause. John's continued admonitions grow quiet, muffled by the door as he saves his fingertips from being smashed in the doorjamb, and eventually fade away. There is a flurry of texts from his friend, but Sherlock ignores those, instead sweeping into the bathroom again and taking a photo of his neck, and the vivid red bruise (made by a woman with perfectly white teeth, precisely 157 cm tall in bare feet, wears waterproof red lipstick a trace of which he can still see now that he knows where to look).

The photo is sent off to an anonymous number, along with a text:

_Really, Woman? I am busy. Working._

 

***

 

At the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, a Woman has just finished packing her overnight bag when her mobile (a small, cheap burner phone that will end up in a rubbish bin before Calais) chirps a text alert. She picks up the phone, checks the photograph, and laughs at the message. Her lips are free of blood-red lipstick for the moment, and her hair frames her face in loose, light brown waves. She looks nothing like she had the night before, she could pass by any number of CCTVs and be dismissed, unnoticed. A virtual ghost passing through the city of London.

Her nails, however, are blood red, perfectly shaped and wickedly sharp, and her fingers are quick and precise as she taps back a response, as she glances over at the four poster bedframe that dominates the room and carries on it four new nicks from severed ropes. There is not a visible mark on her, but she holds herself with a pleased, satiated soreness, a razor-like smile of satisfaction on her lips. She picks up her overnight bag, and her heels click sharply against the polished wood floor as she heads out of the sanctuary of the hotel room and back into the thrumming bustle of the world at large.

_Consider it a Valentine's Day gift, Mr. Holmes. Until next year._

 


End file.
